As the 30th anniversary of Bill Evans’ death approaches, he is on many minds. I am
preparing a piece that will run the week of the date he died, September 15. As I researched it, among the Evans posts I found buried in the Rifftides past is one from four years ago. In those primitive days, the staff had yet to learn how to embed video. All we could do was provide a link to a rare performance of Evans and Kenny Burrell in duo. Now, we bring it to you direct as part of this encore post.
Evans And Burrell
(October 19, 2006)
As far as I knew until today, Bill Evans and guitarist Kenny Burrell recorded together only once, on Evans’ 1978 Quintessence session, which also included tenor saxophonist Harold Land, bassist Ray Brown and drummer Philly Joe Jones. The resourceful Jan Stevens of The Bill Evans Web Pages has pointed the way to another collaboration between Evans and Burrell, at the 1978 Montreux Jazz Festival. They played Thad Jones’ “A Child is Born,” one of the tunes from Quintessence. Evans was rarely caught smiling on camera, but he smiled radiantly—and for good reason—as he and Burrell finished a notably sensitive performance.
Thank you for remembering Bill Evans. This performance speaks volumes on how Burrell and Evans interact in jazz music. Burrell played with so many jazz greats including Oscar Peterson.
While awaiting what should be a major piece by Doug, Evans fans might visit my blog –where unexpected events caused me to post a brief but possibly useful look at Bill (and Monk). Go here:
http://www.mrebks.blogspot.com
Just freaking gorgeous.
Changes your DNA listening to that kind of playing.
It doesn’t get much better than this.